Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Hashira Training Arc
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gumbaloom
Posts: 299 |
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Sad to say it but this feels EXTREMELY likely...film 1 theatrical release next year...as film 2 releases in 2026 we get the "TV edition" of film 1 and blu-rays to coincide with film 2's theatrical release. The KNY cash cow is gonna get miled bone dry! |
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Sekaro
Posts: 375 |
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Have they confirmed the release schedule for these 3 films? Is it gonna be a 1 year gap between them? If that's the case, that would mean Demon Slayer will completely dominate the Best Movie Category in the Crunchyroll Awards for the next 3 years. I'm gonna have a big laugh about that one
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gumbaloom
Posts: 299 |
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Absolutely zero info yet but there is two ways it could roll 1) Release with 1 - 2 month increments between Recent Example a) - Idolmaster Shiny Colors Recent Example b) - Sailor Moon Cosmos Recent Example c) - Haikara san ga tooru 2) Release with 1 year intervals Based off how long Mugen Train stayed well up in the box office charts I think 1) is fairly unlikely. As we all know Mugen Train rolled as follows - Theatrical Release - Stays in cinemas for months - Just before new TV season started recut in to TV season and ran in straight run of Mugen Train with new "filler" episode 1 followed by Entertainment district. If I was Aniplex / UFO table I would to maximise profits air it on TV just as the next film is about to release - keeps the hype up. Maybe wrong and they go with 1) but seems unlikely to me... |
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mrsticky005
Posts: 126 |
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Does anyone else get tired of people
complaining about Demon Slayer's anime adaptation having great animation? Its like this whole stupid thing where because Demon Slayer is run of the mill standard shonen that they think the animation is "wasted" when really it's just a popular series that made money. The animators make great animation because they are able to and because they want to. Of course that's not to say there aren't issues of overwork in animation. But I do think animators actually like animating. They just like sleeping too! So when Muzan walks to Kaguya and it is animated with extra SAUCE I don't think it is a waste I think the animators just wanted to flex. If other series could animate as well or even get an anime they would and they would add the sauce. And sometimes you get a series where they were trying to add the sauce but they tripped and it's a mess. Or the main dish was overdone. Is this analogy even making sense? Probably not. But whatever I like Demon Slayer even if it's your standard battle shonen because I like battle shonen they have inspired me to make my own comics and trying to draw them myself it's not easy. So while others might think Demon Slayer is carried by animation I think the manga was already a solid story with great art. |
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Gem-Bug
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https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gold-painted%20turd |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 380 |
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Right. It's actually crap, but people are just too dumb to see it. Always a classy take. |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
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While that sentiment does come up sometimes, I don't think the quality of the animation is necessarily what people are objecting to. Rather, it seems like a lot of people chafe against the intensely ostentatious direction. Every scene and sequence that isn't comedic relief is layered with soaring music, countless digital effects, and sweeping camera movements courtesy of the largely 3D environments. Sometimes, that works, and it's a big part of why the show gets its fans so hyped. On the other hand, if you don't think the writing in a particularly scene or episode is very good, it feels like the show is screaming in your face that it's super big and important without backing that up with any substance. Much like the stretched-out pacing, it feels like the only creative motivation behind that presentation is that it needs to be BIG and EPIC, and eventually you accommodate to that volume, so it stops feeling special. Also, personally, I think the series' visuals have gotten somewhat weaker as it's gone on. Stuff like the 3D gloop from Mugen Train and the Tree Dragon from Swordsmith Village stick out, but in general the compositing of 2D and 3D elements feels worse compared to the first season. It makes the seams much easier to see, and takes me out of the moment in a lot of the fights. |
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gumbaloom
Posts: 299 |
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Yes for sure Demon Slayer has outstanding visuals that is a given fact. The problem is that sometimes the "oooh ahhhh" pretty visuals are being inserted to showboat rather than enhance the story being told. Cases in point from past 2 weeks - Did we need 5 - 6 minutes of footage wasted on the Muzan slow walk ? - Did we need the Hashira running forever ? If you want to see outstanding visual storytelling that is done well - look at Sound Euphonium - I missed it first time but people have highlighted how there is so many deep layered imagery within Eupho 3 that ehances the story being told. Its not just "omg Muzan is slowly walking lets put some cool smoke effects for fun" or "omg lets do big bad kaboom as everyone will drool over it" |
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mrsticky005
Posts: 126 |
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My view is that demon slayer is standard. Its good but it doesn't exactly break the mold and maybe you want a story to do a bit more and that's totally fine. I just think it's also fine for stories to be simple and to enjoy them for their simplicity. That's not to say that any criticism of lacking complexity is unfounded but when the reviewer goes on about Muzan being a villain without much character it's like Muzan is a demon. What more do you really need? Its fine to want more complex villains but I don't think it is necessary for Muzan to be complex to consider him as an effective final villain. To me Muzan is the less is more type villain. This is why I don't see the animated walk as being "too much" because for the most part it has been Muzan's underlings doing his dirty work but now the big boss himself is making a move so of course even the simple act of just walking ought to be a big deal. |
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mrsticky005
Posts: 126 |
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I dunno I feel like over emphasizing the importance of a moment is really just what battle shonen do. I just think people are a bit more critical of Demon Slayer for what are often standard shonen tropes BECAUSE it's popular and has great animation and maybe they think some other manga is more deserving? Or maybe they are in the "anime was so much better back in my day" camp? Or they want anime to be viewed as "deep" so they only like stuff like I dunno Serial Experiments Lain or Ghost in the Shell which are already well received (obviously for good reason) but with Demon Slayer being simple and I believe intentional so it may not be "sophisticated" enough for some tastes. Btw this isn't aimed at the review or reviewer. |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 380 |
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I agree with you. I know the value of an emotional story that is simple and direct. I've always said DS is more like a fairy tale akin to the old Disney classics (which if people remember are not replete with a lot of deep character development - but are powerful stories that have stood the test of time). Nowadays people think that if you don't fill a character with complex motivations and dialogue, it isn't as good. That's a limited view of what is good and what is not. I love me some deep storytelling - in anime form I think Vinland Saga is a masterpiece. But that doesn't mean DS has to build Muzan up to anything more than he is meant to be to be excellent. Nobody cares how deep Malificent's character is in Sleeping Beauty. She represents an idea and that is the obstacle the hero must overcome. And she does so in a grandiose finale. That's DS. It was never meant to be complicated. But it does resonate because we instinctively know that Muzan is evil and what he represents is wrong. He has to be defeated because the very nature of humanity cannot exist in his philosophy. Stagnation and might makes right mentality are ideas that must be defeated. |
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Top Gun
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No personal offense meant, but excusing Demon Slayer's lack of depth by saying that it's "like a fairy tale" reads as very flat to me. I don't think that anyone who's criticized the series is expecting it to be a deep, complex psychological drama. No one went into this series looking for Dostoevsky. But even limiting one's view to the battle shonen genre, it comes across as incredibly threadbare. There's very little overarching plot, even the main characters get almost no real development, and there isn't even much in the way of general world-building. Suffice it to say that I've watched multiple other battle shonen series that I believe do much better in all of these areas than Demon Slayer does. I have no desire to write an exhaustive list or anything, but for some reason there's one series that keeps coming to mind for me as a comparison point...and it's Inuyasha of all things. Like Demon Slayer, Inuyasha tells a fairly straightforward story, and the two series have more than a few basic elements in common. (Think about it: a small group of companions, one or two of whom exhibit demonic powers, band together to fight demons and collect macguffins to prevent an all-powerful demon from enacting some master plan.) But something that Inuyasha does so much better is how it handles its main villain, Naraku. He also has a sense of mystery to him, but he gets plenty of facetime with the protagonists, and actively taunts them over their perceived lack of power. He's evil and he knows it, and he does a great job of chewing the scenery, which makes him a villain that the viewer/reader loves to hate. Now counter that with Muzan, whom up until that walk scene was probably in the single digits of total screentime throughout the entire series, and who's pretty much a complete unknown. How can you properly hate someone who's barely in the picture? Actually I'm glad you brought up Disney movies, because I think there's an important contrast to be made with them. As you said, fairy tales have effectively told simple good-vs-evil stories for centuries, and that works great in the short story format they generally use. And as Disney showed so many times, you can also do just fine with that level of simplicity over the length of a single family movie. But if you're telling a story that's going to be stretched out over dozens of chapters/episodes, in my opinion there needs to be some more meat on those bones. As James has repeatedly noted, Demon Slayer's anime adaptation has taken whatever issues may have existed in the original manga and greatly exacerbated with how it's handled the series' pacing and season lengths. At some point it just makes for a frustrating viewing experience. |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 380 |
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Sorry for responding late. Like yourself, I've watched many different anime - love Inuyasha, but they are different in a sense. Nothing wrong with Naraku, but there is also nothing wrong with a villain that remains mysterious. We knew a lot about Naraku pretty early on in the tale - and he's a great villain for all the reasons you listed. However, I'll disagree with you on a few different levels: 1) We know a fair bit about Muzan already. Like James, you use hyperbole, but Muzan has appeared in every season for more than "single digits". We know his abilities from his first appearance - he turns a random person into a demon in front of Tanjiro, and then we see him later kill others and showing us the potency of his blood. We know from the past without needing to see it that he slaughtered Tanjiro's family. He is directly responsible for the scene in the very first episode. We saw how his organization is run through the destruction of the lesser demons - and how little his organization means to him. We saw how he fosters the upper ranks through his talk with Daki and then in his scenes in Season 3. We see a whole episode devoted to his origin in Season 3 for goodness sake! I mean, at some point complaining about "single digit" screen time is just a lie. His character is over and over made clear to us - but unlike a villain that seemingly ends up in the middle of the action all of the time - Muzan manages to stay away. He hovers just on the outside intensely trying to achieve his own goals, protected from the demon slayers by his army of demons. I can paint a pretty clear characterization of Muzan, and I don't even need to have him in every scene to do it. I don't have to have episodes like a lot of shonen where the villain makes a "this is why you don't understand" speech to the heroes. The fact that he doesn't in this final season and basically tells the leader of his most hated enemy, "I'm done listening to you." tells you volumes without a speech. 2) Villains come in many shapes and sizes. The reason Naraku, to use your example, works so well in Inuyasha is that it's all very personal to Naraku. He's fixated on our heroes because they are intertwined with how much he wants to poison everything around him. Muzan isn't interested at all in the demon slayers and just wishes they would leave him alone. His goal is eternity - and his actions suggest his disinterest. While there's a battle between life and death in the red light district, Muzan is performing science experiments trying to unlock the secrets of the blue spider lily. 3) Until this past season, Demon Slayer's anime has stuck very tight to the source material. I can very honestly say if you don't like the anime, the adaptation isn't the problem. You won't like the manga. The differences are miniscule. That brings me to my final counterpoint. Everyone likes to talk about things are adapted with too much fluff and filler. Except that when you watch all of the filler, we learn about all of these other characters and provide more characterization for our hero. Those stories may not drive our own hero much farther down the "hero's journey" so to speak, but that's not really very strong criticism to a medium that is replete with having whole seasons devoted to side characters. Anime, especially shonen anime, does this all of the time. DS is a simple fairy tale. But it is also an anime that expands its story and universe. If we saw an anime season created for the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, I suspect we'd have episodes about the dwarves. Would every episode need to promote the basics of the overall conflict? Under your logic - yes. But I've enjoyed anime for a long time because of the depth it allows us to explore the other characters and their stories. Was it essential in Naruto for example to see how Shino beats Kankuro? Nope. Is that bad storytelling? Not at all. Maybe you just don't like the type of fluff and that I can respect. I remember a whole filler season in Bleach devoted to some pointless arc involving Ichigo babysitting some brat. Total filler, total bore - you could tell nobody even bothered writing anything. I think Inuyasha had a filler arc surrounding some random demons - although it's been so long I can't recall their names. Total sidequest stuff that didn't really push Inuyasha's character. But it was a fun side story with characters I liked and it was done moderately well. |
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